|
Directed by: John Carpenter Starring: Kurt Russel, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Dysart The Thing is probably the ultimate alien horror movie. Alien was great, of course, but at the end of the movie you were still looking at a guy in a rubber suit. A really cool H.R. Geiger-designed rubber suit, but still a rubber suit. The Thing in The Thing is different. But more on that later. The story is simple: a bunch of guys are at a little research station in the middle of Antarctica, isolated from the rest of the world, freezing their nuts off, and getting a little wierd in the head from "cabin fever" as a result. Everybody is tense, and everybody is a pain in the rear end to everybody else. This is important, because of the nature of the thing in The Thing, and how the movie works differently (and better) than most horror movies once the thing shows up. John Carpenter creates a great paranoid atmosphere in this movie, and it isn't just a matter of the scary monster involved. Since nobody likes or trusts anybody much to start with, you never know who is going to do something stupid, or throw somebody under the bus to save their own skin. You spend the whole movie on edge, as the thing gradually wipes them out. Mild spoiler (you learn it early in the movie): The thing is an alien that can impersonate any living thing, including people, almost perfectly. At any given time it could be anybody left alive in the cast, right to the very end of the movie. The ensemble cast does a very good job in portraying a bunch of odd characters stuck in an awful situation. There are some good lines in this movie, but they aren't cheesey Ah-Nuld style... and there is at least one "funny"/horrible scene where a character says EXACTLY what you are thinking at that particular moment. When Norris's severed head grows spider legs and tries to sneak off, and that stoner Palmer says, "You've got to be loving kidding." John Carpenter's direction is probably at its peak, having "warmed up" with Halloween, The Fog, and Escape from New York. Sadly, it came out about the same time as the tear-jerking alien sissy fest ET, leading to it being one of Carpenter's least profitable and worst reviewed movies, even though it is easly one of his best. Rob Bottin (The Howling, Total Recall, Seven, Misison: Impossible, Fight Club), with help from Stan Winston (Terminator, Aliens, Predator, Jurassic Park) did the crazy monster and gore effects. This movie sets a benchmark that may never be matched for a) sheer imagination in the design of the monster, b) crazy alien gore effects, or c) all-around insanity. I could spoiler away, and it really wouldn't matter, because it has to be seen to be believed... it is over 20 years old, and makes all the monster CGI I've seen its bitch. There are a couple stop-motion bits that show their age, but 95% of this film's visual effects are spectacular. The thing in The Thing is definitely not just a guy in a rubber suit. Unusually for John Carpenter, he didn't do his own soundtrack. Instead, Ennio Morricone (A Fistfull of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) was brought on to score the movie, which he does... kind of in John Carpenter's style, interestingly enough. Regardless, it is some brilliantly creepy stuff, and helps crank up the paranoia to almost unbearable levels. Since almost everyone will see this on DVD, some comments on the Collector's Edition DVD are in order. If you saw this movie on pre-2002 video versions, or on cable TV, you haven't seen this movie. Universal Studios really cleaned up the video & sound on the Collector's Edition DVD releases; it literally looks and sounds like a new movie. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the picture and sound are better quality than most new movies on DVD. You also get a good commentary track from John Carpenter and Kurt Russel, and a good little documentary with all the major players in the movie called "Terror Takes Shape." To conclude: if you like scary movies, you will love The Thing. RATING: 5 PROS: Possibly the most freakish sci-fi/horror hybrid ever made. Amazing monster effects. Fantastic Ennio Morricone soundtrack. CONS: A handful of the special effects look dated. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/ sean10mm fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jul 1, 2005 |
#
?
Jul 1, 2005 02:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 02:47 |
|